When they reached his rooms, she heard muffled voices. He had company, then. Company would not be ideal for the conversation she needed to have. She turned around; she would confront him later.
But as she took steps back across the landing, Chester’s words came to mind. She had a week to prove that her work was her own. If the thief wasn’t her father, she needed every second of that week to track him down.
Taking in a deep breath, then immediately regretting it as she inhaled a thread of acrid tobacco, she returned to the doorstep and knocked thrice, sharply.
Behind her, Andrew shifted.
The door opened. A cloud of smoke swirled. She waved it away from her, her eyes watering. “Wee bairn,” her father said. “Whit are ye daein’ ’ere?”
“Da. May we enter?” she asked.
He stepped to the side, allowing her to pass. He clapped Andrew on the shoulder with enough force that the boy stumbled as he followed. The room was small, bland, and grimy—how her father’s cabin had looked when she’d first made her way to Abingdale. It was as though he didn’t notice the mess.
There, sitting in one of the two chairs in the room, was a man who had been burned in her memory. Charles Tucker sat relaxed, his ankles crossed, a glass of liquor in one hand and a pipe in the other. He fixed Fiona with a jaunty grin.
“Well, hello there,Finley.” Tucker winked conspiratorially.
“Och. Nae need fur that here,” her father said. He gestured for her to sit in the spare chair, but she couldn’t bring herself to get that close to Tucker, partly because she was currently holding herself back with every shred of restraint she had. She’d love nothing more than to rake her fingers down those ruddy, pocked cheeks.
“What are ye doing withhim?” she asked. “He killed Jeremy.”
“Oi—” Tucker straightened and her father stepped between them, putting a restraining hand on her shoulder.
“Now, Jeremy’s death was an accident. An awful one at that, but an accident. We had no idea the engine would explode the way it did.”
Wehad no idea. She sucked in breath. The comment hit like one of Ben’s steam engines. Behind her, Andrew started forward, and she threw a hand out to stop him passing her.
“Tell me ye didn’t know, Da. Tell me ye never had the chance to stop a sixteen-year-old boy from sabotaging the engine boiler the way he did.” Because if he had known, then her father had been equally responsible.
She’d looked past his flaws. She’d forgiven him for the way he abandoned her. But if he had used Jeremy for his own purposes, if he had pushed the boy into the factory that night of the riot, she wasn’t sure she could forgive him for that.
Her father rubbed at his nose, suddenly finding the wall behind her fascinating, and she had the answer she needed.
Her throat closed. All this time, she’d thought Jeremy acted on his own, spurred on by Tucker and the poison he’d been spreading but ultimately making the rash decision for himself.
Shame flooded her, shame for her father’s selfishness, for his myopic view of the world that left no room for empathy or kindness or decency. He was so caught up in his anger and his fire for revolution that he didn’t care about the people burned along the way.
But there was a deeper shame, one that sat like poison in her gut. She still loved him. He had done terrible thing after terrible thing, yet she still loved him. Her cheeks seared at the wrenching of her heart and her eyes stung with tears.
Then the man she wanted to hear from least stood. “The boy’s death was a loss,” Tucker said. “He had great potential. But at least he died for a good cause.”
There was a roar, and then Andrew barreled past her, tackling Tucker to the ground. He raised a fist and planted it into the revolutionary’s face with such force that Fiona heard bone crunch.
Tucker yelped and put his hands over his face, but Andrew continued to rain down blows, his fists finding any unshielded spot.
Her father looked at her to stop the assault, but she couldn’t move. After a few moments, Alastair grabbed Andrew by both arms and hauled him off. Andrew scrambled to his feet.
Tucker sat, cursing and trying to stem the bleeding from his nose, but Fiona had eyes only for her father. “What else are you doing ‘for the cause,’ Da? Who else are ye sacrificing?”Me? Are you sacrificing us again? Do you have such little care for your daughter?
Guilt washed across his face, and his eyes flicked to the desk on the other side of the room. No doubt its drawers held her match samples and the paperwork to go with them. Shaking her head, she marched toward them.
“Fiona.” Alastair moved quickly. Faster than she could have anticipated. He shoved her away, and she stumbled to the floor.
Oh.She gasped as she sat. Her father had actually struck her.
“Oi!” Andrew rushed to her side, giving her his hand to help her stand. She couldn’t say anything. Her mouth opened and closed but no words would come out, as though shock had stolen her voice.
Standing in front of her, his arms crossed, Andrew said: “Miss and I are going home. Stay away from us.”
